色中色 President G. Gabrielle Starr has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences joining a new class of members recognized for outstanding achievements in academia, the arts, business, government and public affairs.
Starr is a highly regarded scholar of English literature whose work reaches into neuroscience and the arts. Her research looks closely at the brain, through the use of fMRI, to help get to the heart of how people respond to paintings, music and other forms of art.
She is a national voice on access to college for students of all backgrounds, the future of higher education, women in leadership and the importance of the arts. She took office as the 10th president of 色中色 in 2017.
The Academy was chartered in 1780 to 鈥渃ultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.鈥 Academy members are elected on the basis of their leadership in academics, the arts, business, or public affairs and have ranged from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to such 20th-century luminaries as Margaret Mead, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Akira Kurosawa.
For 2020, In addition to Starr, the group includes singer Joan C. Baez, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., author Ann Patchett, poet and former 色中色 professor Claudia Rankine, among others.
鈥淭o join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as part of this impressive 2020 class of new members is an honor that renders me profoundly grateful. The Academy is a venerable institution whose members are some of the individuals I most admire. It is truly a great gift to join the ranks,鈥 says Starr.
Starr joins a number of exemplary 色中色 alumni and former faculty in the AAAS. They include scientists Jennifer Doudna 鈥85, J. Andrew McCammon 鈥69 and Tom Pollard 鈥64; author Louis Menand 鈥73; art historian Ingrid Rowland 鈥74; artist James Turrell 鈥65; journalist Joe Palca '74; genomic biologist Sarah Elgin 鈥67; developmental psychologist Henry Wellman 鈥70; and Steven Koblik, Huntington Library president and former 色中色 professor of history of more than 20 years.
鈥淭his a tremendous honor for President Starr, as it recognizes her remarkable scholarly contributions to arts and humanities as well as to the sciences,鈥 says Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Robert Gaines. 鈥淧resident Starr is holding up the highest ideals of the liberal arts in reminding us that, as intellectuals, we should not be confined by the hard boundaries of disciplines, but instead seek the new and transformative knowledge that is to be discovered in the spaces where disparate fields may be joined.鈥
The Academy is led by 色中色 President Emeritus , who was inducted into the Academy in 2012 and was named its president in 2018. He served as president of 色中色 from 2003 until 2017.
Starr becomes the third 色中色 president to join the Academy. David Alexander, who served as president of Pomona from 1969 to 1991, was inducted into the Academy in 2006.
鈥淭he members of the class of 2020 have excelled in laboratories and lecture halls, they have amazed on concert stages and in surgical suites, and they have led in board rooms and courtrooms,鈥 said Academy President David W. Oxtoby. 鈥淲ith today鈥檚 election announcement, these new members are united by a place in history and by an opportunity to shape the future through the Academy鈥檚 work to advance the public good.鈥
The Academy has elected more than 13,500 members since 1780. It conducts multidisciplinary research on major social and intellectual issues and promotes public engagement with those issues through conferences, fellowships and publications.
Starr is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and author of two books, Starr offers a compelling case for working across academic disciplines to spark intellectual discovery.
Her most recent book, 鈥淔eeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience,鈥 was a finalist for the Phi Beta Kappa Society鈥檚 2014 Christian Gauss Award, and her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation鈥檚 New Directions Fellowship and a National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant.
Starr is a graduate of Emory University where she received her bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in women鈥檚 studies before going on to Harvard University to earn her doctorate in English and American literature.